Wasp Gene Expression Supports an Evolutionary Link Between Maternal Behavior and Eusociality

@article{citeulike:1752925, abstract = {The presence of workers that forgo reproduction and care for their siblings is a defining feature of eusociality and a major challenge for evolutionary theory. It has been proposed that worker behavior evolved from maternal care behavior. We explored this idea by studying gene expression in the primitively eusocial wasp Polistes metricus. Because little genomic information existed for this species, we used 454 sequencing to generate 391,157 brain cDNA reads, resulting in robust hits to 3,017 genes from the honey bee genome, from which we identified and assayed orthologs of 32 honey bee behaviorally-related genes. Wasp brain gene expression in workers was more similar to foundresses, which show maternal care, than to queens and gynes, which do not. Insulin-related genes were among the differentially regulated genes, suggesting that the evolution of eusociality involved major nutritional and reproductive pathways. 10.1126/science.1146647}, author = {Toth, Amy L. and Varala, Kranthi and Newman, Thomas C. and Miguez, Fernando E. and Hutchison, Stephen K. and Willoughby, David A. and Simons, Jan F. and Egholm, Michael and Hunt, James H. and Hudson, Matthew E. and Robinson, Gene E. }, citeulike-article-id = {1752925}, doi = {10.1126/science.1146647}, journal = {Science}, keywords = {evolution, expression-regulation}, month = {September}, pages = {1146647+}, posted-at = {2007-12-06 14:29:59}, priority = {0}, title = {Wasp Gene Expression Supports an Evolutionary Link Between Maternal Behavior and Eusociality}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1146647}, year = {2007} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:1752925 L3 - citeulike-article-id:1752925 TI - Wasp Gene Expression Supports an Evolutionary Link Between Maternal Behavior and Eusociality JF - Science SP - 1146647 N2 - The presence of workers that forgo reproduction and care for their siblings is a defining feature of eusociality and a major challenge for evolutionary theory. It has been proposed that worker behavior evolved from maternal care behavior. We explored this idea by studying gene expression in the primitively eusocial wasp Polistes metricus. Because little genomic information existed for this species, we used 454 sequencing to generate 391,157 brain cDNA reads, resulting in robust hits to 3,017 genes from the honey bee genome, from which we identified and assayed orthologs of 32 honey bee behaviorally-related genes. Wasp brain gene expression in workers was more similar to foundresses, which show maternal care, than to queens and gynes, which do not. Insulin-related genes were among the differentially regulated genes, suggesting that the evolution of eusociality involved major nutritional and reproductive pathways. 10.1126/science.1146647 KW - evolution KW - expression-regulation AU - Toth, Amy AU - Varala, Kranthi AU - Newman, Thomas AU - Miguez, Fernando AU - Hutchison, Stephen AU - Willoughby, David AU - Simons, Jan AU - Egholm, Michael AU - Hunt, James AU - Hudson, Matthew AU - Robinson, Gene PY - 2007/09/27/ UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1146647 ER -